Which national Republican strategist decided it was a good idea to make the ethically impaired and extremely unpopular Governor of Florida the public face of GOP vote suppression efforts?
Several polls have shown now that Rick Scott would lose in 2014 if Charlie Crist became a Democrat and ran against him but our newest survey finds that Democrats might not need that high of a profile candidate to knock off Scott, at least if he remains this unpopular. 5% of voters in the state have a positive opinion of State Senator Nan Rich. Only 14% have even heard of her. And despite that she still leads Scott by 12 points in a hypothetical match up, 47-35.
Obviously that finding has a lot more to do with Scott than it does with Rich. His approval rating has sunk back down to 31%, with 56% of voters disapproving of him.
One thing that hasn’t done his popularity any favors lately is his push to eliminate some people from the voter rolls. Only 34% of voters approve of that effort to 50% who disagree with it.
Scott is at 31% approval and 34% approve of the voter purge effort. In other words, the GOP base.
And, voter registration has started back up:
The League of Women Voters and Rock The Vote will resume voter registration drives in Florida, less than one week after a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the state of Florida for a 2011 law that imposed difficult timetables and the prospect of large fines on groups registering voters.
“As Judge Hinkle recognized, when organizations like LWVF and RTV conduct voter registration drives they are engaging in constitutionally protected activity that promotes democracy,” said Lee Rowland, their attorney said Wednesday. “We are extremely pleased that the court’s initial ruling allows our clients to restart those efforts.”
Both groups ceased their efforts, but sued in federal court. Last week, a judge agreed with the League and RTV that the restrictions placed undue burdens on voter registration groups and temporarily stayed the law. While it is not yet known if the state will appeal, the court ruling allows the groups to resume registering voters before Florida’s August congressional primaries.
JGabriel
Yeah, but Scott doesn’t care about that 50%, because he’s not gonna let them vote!
Bahahaha!
Oh, wait. That’s really not funny.
Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or cry or resort to violence.
.
wag
how long until only 27% of floridians approve of Scott and his voter purge?
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Are there any funds/groups/charities that explicitly target donated cash to voter registration efforts in a given State?
I’m starting to wonder if that might not be a better dollar-for-dollar use of small donations than giving directly to candidates.
Valdivia
I never understood how they elected this asshole. I would be glad to see him lose in 2014. Am I too hopeful?
beltane
One time while riding home from work on the #4 train, an escaped mental patient boarded the train at Grand Central and then proceeded to stand in front of the doors, preventing them from closing and the train from leaving. He would not budge until the cops finally came and took him away.
The only reason I mention this story is that the escaped mental patient looked exactly like Rick Scott. How could anyone vote for someone like this?
Yutsano
@wag: He has a slight edge due to the large number of older folks in his state. So I highly doubt he falls below 30%.
Kay
@Valdivia:
I still can’t get over it.
Largest Medicare fraud case in US history. Now the Florida governor.
You can’t make this shit up. Must be his sparkling charm, huh?
BGinCHI
Forget about it, Jake. It’s Florida.
beltane
@Yutsano: You’d think older voters would especially frightened of someone who looks like this. Are these people so very racist that they can’t recognize psychopaths of their own race?
If Charles Manson ran as a Republican he’d be elected King of Teabaggistan.
bemused
The teacher that got fined for registering students to vote as she had done for a long time was from Florida, wasn’t she?
Valdivia
@Kay:
Obviously you and I are just too bound by the rules of reality and fail to see what a great idea this was and his sparkling charm.
I thought it was in Latin America that we elected convicted felons to office. Guess not.
gbear
So cool that the League of Women Voters feel safe to go back into the state again. So uncool that they were in danger of legal prosecution for registering voters.
Roger Moore
@Valdivia:
Given that he won by fewer than 62,000 votes, I’m guessing that disenfranchising Democratic voters had something to do with it.
Valdivia
@Roger Moore:
I had forgotten it was this close.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I assumed that was because Medicare fraud includes things like excessive generosity in giving out scooters and diabetes testing supplies — the beneficiaries aren’t being defrauded, the program is. All of those late-night medical services commercials reek of fraud to me: “we fill out all the paperwork!” Etc. But I never looked into what Scott’s company actually did.
The Dangerman
Anyone else thinks a Republican is leaking classified secrets and then blaming the White House? I’m looking at you, John McCain.
Ash Can
I guess the silver lining in all of this is that enough people in Florida appear to have woken the hell up to vote this shitheel out of office next time around.
Ben
For those wondering how he got elected, it’s because Florida functionally has no Democratic party. There’s an organization that calls itself that, but it has no interest in winning elections or getting anything passed, only maintaining a third of the legislature and keeping party officials employed.
There’s an organizational rot here that’s only going to get solved if someone basically comes in and kicks everyone out.
Stuck in the Funhouse
What did they expect? digging up Lurch and shaving his head. That Thing was going to run things.
kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I just think it didn’t matter, in 2010. Nothing mattered, but some need to express incoherent rage.
Ohio elected a Lehman Bros. Exec and Fox News personality.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: Also, wasn’t it a three-way? (Oh, stop it, people.)
But beltane’s right. The man even looks like a crazy motherfucker.
jl
And he wouldn’t pee in the cup.
Maybe if he peed apple juice, like some other FL state officials do, we might have come confidence that everything was sweetness and light in there.
poor pee pie
thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-february-2-2012/poor-pee-ple
jharp
Fuck Charlie Christ.
And I think the republican strategists picked Florida not because of Rick Scott but because it is the easiest and most profitable state to steal the election.
Patricia Kayden
Hopefully all this purging nonsense will swing Florida for President Obama. One thing I can say about Repubs — they are bold. Now Gov Scott is demanding that the DOJ help him with his purge.
maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/07/12102686-floridas-scott-defends-voter-purge-scheme?lite
KG
@jharp: when I get bored, I play around on 270towin, and almost always, it has Florida as a must win for Romney based on a lot of polls. If they can’t turn Florida “red”, then they are toast, and I think they know that (hell, I think they know they may be toast long term because they’ve structurally lost the Pacific West, the Upper Midwest, and the Northeast)
shortstop
@KG: They are toast anyway unless something totally unexpected happens, but yes, Florida is a must-must-really-really-must-win for Romney even if that something totally unexpected happens, and they know it.
Hill Dweller
OT: After the shitty press tried turning an innocuous Obama statement about public sector job losses dragging down the economy into a scandal, Willard scores an own goal by saying we don’t need any more cops, firefighters and teachers. The rotund governor from New Jersey follows suit, and says firing public workers is the right direction.
As Greg Sargent pointed out, they’ve managed to take the big bad government talking point and turned it into an attack on teacher, firefighters and cops.
The Willard campaign is incompetent.
FlipYrWhig
@Ben:
It ain’t just Florida where that’s true.
mouse tolliver
@Valdivia:
I’ll take a wild guess. His Democratic opponent was probably a horrible candidate who never even mentioned the Medicare fraud even once.
Southern Beale
Today was supposed to be the wingnuts’ National Day Of Blogger Silence.
I couldn’t tell, could you?
RinaX
@mouse tolliver:
It seems like a million years ago, but Alex Sink was about the best Dems were going to do for Florida. She wasn’t all that enthused about being linked to Obama, and toed the centrism line. She actually had a slight lead until this disastrous debate about a week before the election where she was seen getting texts on a cell-phone, and the right-wing made hay over it. In a state like this, something like that is just enough to tip an off-year election to someone like Rick Scott.
Southern Beale
Also, much hilarity: hideous painting of Andrew Breitbart as Sir Rantsalot was actually plagiarized from a video game.
If wingnuts had an original thought it would die of loneliness.
KG
@efgoldman: money can overcome incompetency if the incompetency is in the middle management of the campaign or lower. If it’s at the top, like the candidate/nominee or those who have his/her ear, then no amount of money can overcome it.
I’m of the mind that Romney isn’t incompetent, just amoral. I think those who are giving him advice are incompetent (which may speak to Romney’s competency or amorality or his craven desire to win and belief that these incompetent advisors are the least incompetent available).
Rafer Janders
@beltane:
Excuse me, but I look nothing like Rick Scott. I resent the implication.
burnspbesq
@mouse tolliver:
Here’s the thing: the Columbia/HCA scandal resonates with the sort of people who hang out at blogs like this. The public in general doesn’t give a shit, for the following reasons: (1) it was a long time ago and (2) “well, if da Gubmint had such a great case, why did it make a deal?”
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: You can’t fool us. You haven’t been on the subway since 1997.
Southern Beale
@burnspbesq:
That’s just stupid. The gunmint did have a great case and they got a guilty plea and a $1.7 billion settlement, the largest in U.S. history.
jl
I see Nate Silver’s blog has the state by state election model up.
And even though the stupid NYT paywall put a friendly notice that I still had 5 views left, it would not let me open the blog.
And I see Silver just puts a sentence summarizing the blog, so it isn’t really a blog anymore, it is a come on to pay up to see anything.
But, to his credit, Silver does a time series of his nowcast and Nov. 6 projections.
The time series of projections is pretty surprising for president who is supposed to be in big trouble for the election. Probably best to ignore the corporate media and read Silver first thing every month.
Hill Dweller
@KG:
I think Romney is both incompetent and amoral, although not in equal parts.
jl
@efgoldman:
Yes, the resistance of the local election supervisors was a tad noticeable. Scott got whiffed 67 to 0 on that one.
And they apparently are not types that get all skeered. I saw of pic of one elections supervisor standing next one his county residents who had been purged on immigration grounds, except the guy was holding up a passport.
Southern Beale
Someone who thinks Republicans won’t walk all over you is someone who needs to grow the fuck up:
C’mon people. Don’t think Romney will treat you any better if he’s elected. This is how Republicans are. They treat you like shit because you’re just a fucking plebe.
Southern Beale
@jl:
You know how to get around the paywall, don’tcha? Easy as hitting the delete key.
dmsilev
@Southern Beale: I read that story. Hilarious. You’d think they could have at least picked a game that captured Breitbart’s essence. Leisure Suit Larry comes to mind.
jl
@Southern Beale:
Thank you for that heart warming anecdote. Only in Amercia!
I don’t know how much incompetence versus amorality versus clueless explains the Romney campaign.
But I think the classless jerk starts at the top, and that explains a lot.
jl
@Southern Beale: Thanks.
slag
@Hill Dweller: My favorite part of that quote is that Rmoney reminds us that the American government includes policemen, firefighters, and teachers.
Hey-we actually get stuff for our tax dollars! Thanks for the reminder, Mittens.
burnspbesq
@Southern Beale:
Did you fail to notice the quotation marks around that statement, which were intended to communicate that it did not represent my personal views, but rather the likely attitude of the average schmoe?
Teresa
“Which national Republican strategist decided it was a good idea to make the ethically impaired and extremely unpopular Governor of Florida the public face of GOP vote suppression efforts?”
A he man manly belly bumping boob.
jl
I am such a foolish scrupulous loser that I actually have scruples about hacking a paywall {Edit: for NYT] And the guy who runs it, Keller, seems so dim, I feel sorry for him.
I actually paid a few bucks awhile back for a special on access, but the thing works really weird, and it irritated me so I didn’t renew it.
Unless I am getting subliminal page views that I do not remember, the thing does not seem to count views correctly.
As I said, just today I get a message I have 5 views left, then I immediately clicked to another article and I was blocked.
Does that happen to anybody else?
SiubhanDuinne
@Hill Dweller:
A grateful nation rejoices.
grandpa john
@Hill Dweller: While the incompetence may be questioned, although not by me, the amorality is not disputable
SiubhanDuinne
@jl:
Heck, they don’t even tell me how many views I have remaining. They just cut me off. If there were some kind of counter, I’d be a little more judicious, I suppose.
I have no problem opening NYT in different browsers or from different accounts, etc., to maximize the number of views, but I’m like you and feel a bit wrong about actual hacking. And I say that as though I actually knew how to hack, which I do not. So on top of feeling somewhat guilty, I’d probably get caught anyhow thanks to sheer incompetence.
Arm The Homeless
He was elected because we had three credible candidates who split the vote, in an off-year with a still cratered economy thanks to a certain multi-national oil company.
I like Nan, but she has to be more pro-active in trying to poach red counties. You don’t win in Florida by just getting the urban areas. You have to make St. Joe work, you can’t let them focus on wedging the I-10 and Gulf Coast from the I-95 corridor.
beltane
Mitt Romney met a doughnut for the first time in his life today, hilarity ensues wonkette.com/474818/doughnut-identification-glitch-detected-in-mitt-romney-software.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
I am totes stealing this.
Also, I’m within weeks of my 70th birthday. Why am I using words like “totes”? I guess at some level it makes me feel hip and groovy.
lacp
Seeing that Florida is a must-have for Willard and given his awesome political instincts, Governor 31% is a lock for the VP spot.
lacp
@beltane: Well, I can understand his/its confusion: unlike Michigan doughnuts, these were not all of just the right size.
shortstop
@SiubhanDuinne: “Totes” is fun to say regardless of the speaker’s age. It gives off a satisfying little smack upfront and in the middle, and ends with a lovely little hiss.
SiubhanDuinne
@shortstop:
Thanks! I’m totes stealing that, too.
cat48
There’s an article by John Harwood in the NYT about Demographic changes in the 12 Swing states, are favorable increases to Obama by abt 3%. If he can maintain his coalition, he could lose some white voters. I think black voters will stick with him and Latinos still support him by 66-23 in a poll out today. They hate Kobach who is on Mitt’s advisory staff. Obama needs to improve with young people & college educated whites he carried last time. We could win!
Since FL is included in the demographic change, guess Rick was trying to fix that problem with an 88% minority purge. I wonder if other GOP Gov are purging silently. Scary.
jl
@beltane:
The ‘don’t insult their food’ training sessions are working, but Mitt is not quite there yet.
kay
@cat48:
Part of the problem with purging is idiotic media reports of “dead voters.”
I’ve been reading them for years and they’re always wrong. Not just a little wrong, either. Stupidly “I’m writing this with no thought whatsoever” wrong.
It’s hard to take a deceased voter off the rolls because it’s supposed to be hard. People have the same names. They are “juniors.” or they have odd living arrangements, where they “reside” one place but spend all their time in another place.
Because I worked for the postal service I became familiar with lists of names and addresses. It’s not rocket science but you have to use common sense. The boring, mundane answer is 99% of the time what happened when there’s something odd, not a massive conspiracy, but instead we get
screaming headlines about dead people VOTING.
They’ve been ratcheting up the purge insanity for. two years. They’re directly responsible for some of it.
burnspbesq
@beltane:
How do you differentiate between an escaped mental patient and every other person on the 4 train?
tybee
we don’t call it Floriduh for nothing
OzoneR
I am stunned that only 34% of people in Bavaria by the Gulf support this.
Another Halocene Human
Go Kay, great post.
You’ll be hearing plenty more PINK SLIP RICK! PINK SLIP RICK! before the year is out, I promise you.
kay
@OzoneR:
It was clumsily handled. You usually don’t see photos of the disenfranchised voters, smiling, “papers” in hand.
They nabbed two illegal immigrants who were born, respectively, in Maryland and Ohio.
A public relations disaster for the voter suppression movement.
Another Halocene Human
@wag: I’m pretty sure our magic 27% is 31% in Florida. We’re extra-wingnutty.
Another Halocene Human
@Valdivia: I thought it was Washington, DC “urbans” who voted felons to office (also Detroit “urban voters”), not rock-ribbed and diabeetus-bellyed lily-white’n’Flahdah-tanned Tea Partiers from the Villages and Sarasota and Boca Raton.
But what do I know?
Another Halocene Human
@Roger Moore: Discouraging, it was discouraging. It was a shitty year for Florida politics and the GROUNDZEROMOSQUE!!! ratfucking operation, along with Dick Armey’s Healthcare Demoralization Machine was working its magic.
In retrospect, Alex Sink ran a shitty campaign. I gave her money early but there was never any ground game. I hate to say it, but Rick Scott had one… the administrators at his hospitals. Fat off the misery of their underpaid and abused employees (and sweet, sweet gubmint cash), they gleefully campaigned to get him in office.
Another Halocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: Actually, beneficiaries ARE being defrauded by those medical supply scams. They use other people’s names and then when that person (the unwitting straw purchaser) actually needs a scooter after an accident or a stroke, they are informed that they have already gotten one and aren’t eligible!
NO DRAMA OBAMA has been cracking down on that shit. Didn’t get a ton of press but imagining the squeals of the outraged piggies (the informercial co’s, not the rubes who call their 1-800 number) gave me great joy.
Another Halocene Human
@Ben:
Yeah. Basically.
Another Halocene Human
@shortstop: Where’s his ground game? I see signs for local republican pols running for county commissioner but no Rmoney signs. I did see a Romney sign four years ago and vandalized it. Not proud, but… I hate that guy.
Another Halocene Human
@mouse tolliver:
His fraud got brought up a lot, especially by his Republican opponent in the primary. I didn’t watch the debate because I wasn’t voting for Slicky Ricky, but I heard Alex Sink did poorly.
The sad thing was Rick Scott apparently won points with people claiming FRS was in trouble … and that was a lie. That was exposed after the election.
But mostly, everyone stayed home except the Tea Party Bircherites in 2010. Just about everywhere, so y’all stop singling us out, now.
Another Halocene Human
@Southern Beale: This made my evening. Thank you, sincerely. I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks.
OzoneR
@kay: Still…its Florida.
Sawgrass Stan
n’Yup– it’s Florida….
Scott and Co. won in a squeaker because reasonable voters sat on their hands, giving it over to a ludicrously unqualified Teeper wrecking crew. Doing GOTV down here for Dems was a pretty scary experience, but you’d at least think running against a barely-unindicted med fraud millionaire would be something of a walk. Alas, it was 2010, and it was Florida.